They do not act, they are the Saint, the Duke,
The hero-villain, the fair, fragile maid,
Real for the moment of our pageantry

As love and faith and God's hand in the dark

Spirits made flesh, not boys, but visions! Ah! Not boys, but dreams; not words, but Truth! not man,

But something mightier, commanding man, Alone can fitly dedicate this stage,

This church-where not in unctuous brocade Prinked and emblazoned for the sight of heaven,

But nakedly in combat, stripped of sham, Man talks with God. Let spirits dedicate What is the spirit's! In the name of Truth! (With an emphatic gesture.)

Now let the curtain rise! (He turns as
though to leave the stage, hesitates and
turns again to the audience.)
You smile. The curtain? Let the curtain
rise?

Who speaks of curtains in this open dell
Of cool, green turf and unperturbéd waters?
What curtain is there here to rise or fall?
Ah, there are hundreds ! On
lie-

your eyes they

The curtains which the busy weaving men, We call the years, have woven of your thoughts. You said that thoughts were nothing. What a web

Have now the weavers made of that thin silk The spider-brain spun of the love of things The eye could see, the ear could hear, the hand

Could finger, squeeze and claw. Ah, what a web

Of gray, inconsequential-seeming threads! The modish thoughts, the meat-and-money thoughts

In webs, in webs, in iron curtains, proof
Against whatever fires of poesy

Burn in white aspirations from our lines,
They hang between us and your inner eyes,
Those better eyes, the pure eyes of the soul.

Lift up the curtain! For an hour lift up
The veil that holds you prisoners in this world
Of coins and wires and motor-horns, this
world

Of figures and of men who trust in facts,
This pitiable, hypocritic world

Where men with blinkered eyes and hobbled feet

Grope down a narrow gorge and call it life. Lift up the curtain! Gaze upon our world. Look! Are there cedars here, a fence beyond,

A pond, a football field, an ugly mass
Of huddled roofs behind that poplar-row ?
Lift up the curtain! We are in a wood
Above a city in Illyria.

(From the right enter Fra Angelo, a tall friar in a white cowl. He is accompanied by Rabelin, a boy of seventeen, in medieval garb.) Fra Angelo.

Look, Rabelin. Our journey

nears its end. There lies the city, slumbering in the dusk. So beautiful it is, so calm, so mute,

So open to God's gaze, you would not guess How the bees hum and labor in the hive And love and kill and die. So many roofs, And under each the struggle and the pain; Youth reaching out, and old age falling back: Youth, hoping; age, remembering; each at strife

With earth and heaven, scarce knowing why he strives.

So many roofs, so many tragedies
Of unfulfilled existences.
The sun

Plays with gay magic on the fretted dome.
Look, with what reckless generosity
He strews his gems. That flash was from a pan
In some poor drudge's hand; that running light
Broke from a sudden ripple on the stream,
Raised by the first puff of the evening breeze.
How soft the night falls on those far, dark hills.
Like an inaudible, blue wave it breaks
Along the horizon's edge. The valley mists
Rise up like foam. Wait. Soon upon the
deep

The white sails shall appear, the silver sails
That carry cargoes through sidereal seas
For the immortal venturers of heaven.
I shall be glad to see the stars again.

Not now. You have

A dear and human way with you by day,
A way of being near. I never thought
A good man could be such a friend.. I'm sure
You're pleasanter than ordinary saints.
And yet, at twilight, when the stars come out,
You frighten me. You seem so far away.
Fra Angelo. The stars are friends of mine.
Rabelin. Yes, that's the joke.

You're human, but you have such queer ideas.
If you were only now like other men,
Why, with your reputation as a saint,
Your holiness, and that odd gift of yours
Of making sick men well and bad men good-
Heaven knows what eminence you might
attain.

You ought to be the Pope, you might be King;
If you would do as much as lift your hand,
You could be richer than a duke, with gold
And jewelry and robes of scarlet silk-.
Fra Angelo. Gold must have guardians,
jewels must have locks,

Clothes must have roofs to shield them from the weather.

Such things are nothing if they are not all.
It is a matter of the eyes; and mine
See heaven's gold and have no taste for
earth's.

Rabelin. You are a holy man and I am not.
There lies the trouble. You don't care a rap
For gems and gold and scarlet things to wear.
I do, like every gentleman of taste.

I think I must have noble blood somewhere,
For I have feelings for life's higher things
That as a rule only a noble has,

Fine linen and such things. You wear a cowl
And under that a rope and that is all.
You think that's saintly. Well, I think it's just
A little narrow, I might almost say
A little cowardly, as though you feared
That your religion might not stand the strain
Of silk on Sundays.

Fra Angelo. Something might be said
About the cowardice that hides in cowls.
But I prefer a cowl.

Rabelin. That's your affair.

I'll not dispute you have a free man's right
To your own kind of clothes. But I assert
You have no right to keep from me the means
To clothe myself in silks if I so wish.
Fra Angelo. What have I done?

Rabelin. What have you done? Last night
You healed a rich man's son, you raised him up
When he was gone almost, and when they
brought

Gold to repay you, you rejected it!

That was your business, that was your affair
If you refused the wherewithal to give
Drink to the orphan, to the widow meat.
Oh, I'll admit that was your own affair,
Though I've my notions of its saintliness !-
But when they turned and offered me their
gold,

Saying, "Your friend is young, he wears no cowl,

Some day perhaps he may have need of gold,"
And you refused to let me take their gift,
That, I declare, was holiness gone mad.
Fra Angelo. A week ago your thoughts were
all of heaven.

Why are they turned so suddenly to earth? Rabelin. Oh, I am sick of this religious buncombe.

I think and think and don't get anywhere. Things you can see, things you can touch and smell,

Those are the things I seem to want-real things,

Substantial things that you can weigh. God knows

If there is any God. I'm sure I don't. But there is money and there's power and place

Fra Angelo. If you wish money, there are many ways

That money may be sought. Why do you, then, Follow a wandering madman through the hills? Rabelin. Heaven knows.

Fra Angelo. I never urged you, Rabelin.
You came to me. I did not ask you whence,
Nor why you came.

Rabelin.. I came from dice and taverns.
Fra Angelo. So wicked and so young!
Rabelin. Oh, laugh! You think

I'm just a boy. You never would believe
How bad I was.

Fra Angelo (warmly).

Rabelin. Well, then, don't blame me
When you discover what a devil I am.
Sometimes I fear I'll be an atheist.

Fra Angelo. But you were such a fire of faith.
Rabelin. I know.

I swallowed everything, hook, bait, and sinker.

Fr Angelo. But you're a skeptic!

Rabelin. Of course. But then the sick folk won't know that.

I've watched you heal. It doesn't seem so hard.

Some day I'll learn the trick, and when I do,
You bet, I'll not refuse a rich man's gift.
Fra Angelo. So? So? A trick?
Rabelin. Well, something like a trick.
Fra Angelo. Is that the reason why you
cleave and cling,

To learn my trick? A trick, a juggler's trick!

And turn it into goblets and fine linen?
Rabelin. I've made you angry.

Fra Angelo. Yes, you strike at God
When you strike at his work.
Rabelin. It's your work.

Fra Angelo. No.

Rabelin. Well, I suppose you're through

I hate myself, and everything, but you,
And somehow, you're the one of all the world
I'm meanest to. I don't know what I want.
I think I want to do something, to fight,
Or go to sea, or be a missionary,
Or go about the country, healing folk
Like you.
Sometimes I want to die.

Fra Angelo. Not yet, my brother.
has quite enough

God

Boys of your age to manage up in heaven,
And earth may find some labor for you yet.
Rabelin. You're making fun of me again!
Fra Angelo. Of course.

My love were less the deep love that it is
If it were love unmixed with laughter.
Rabelin (almost tearful). Well,

I won't be laughed at, teased, and patronized.
It may be sinful, but I'm not a saint,
And don't pretend to be, and I'm not meek,
Nor humble. Not a bit of it. I'm proud.
Some day or other we are bound to break.
It might as well be now.

Fra Angelo. Why, yes. Why, yes.
Freely you came and you shall freely go.
Give me your hand.

(Rabelin, with his back turnea towards
him, makes no move to accept the prof
fered hand.)

You won't? Why, then, good-by.
I'm very sure that we shall meet again.
(He goes out. center back.)

Rabelin (tossing his head defiantly). Oh, for
a chance to show what I can do!
Anything! Just to show him. Anything!
If only some one 'd fall into a river
While I was near, or there would come a war,
I'd make him swallow humble pie, I would!
(He goes out, whistling desperately.)

night.

Watch and be ready."

He may not come till

That's all very well.

I've watched for seven blank and weary hours.
I don't believe there is a holy man.
And even if there is, it's ten to one
He'll somehow circumnavigate this burg.
All the excitements do. I'm going to sleep.
Cathedral steps don't make the softest bed.
But it's a hard stone that'll keep my brain
Working against my will. That holy man!

(A boy runs in from the right.) He's here! He's in the town!

The Man on Crutches.

Boy. I saw

Him close as I see you.
The Man on Cruiches.
Boy. Yes. A woman.
said-

He's here?

I saw him heal! Heal!

She was blind. He

(The great Bell of the cathedral close by be

gins to ring with eager, rejoicing strokes.) The Man on Crutches. He's here!

(The Page moves restlessly, but settles down again into still sounder slumber. From the left and rear, Men, Women, and Children, among them the halt, the lame, and the blind, run in, crying excitedly to each other.)

Voices. The bell! He's here! He's in the town!

This way! Come, this way!

You're crowding me!

emerges. The Man on Crutches, who has kept in the background, hobbles up to him.)

The Man on Crutches (stretching out his hand). Heal me!

Fra Angelo (gazing tenderly into his eyes).

You are healed.

The Man on Crutches (stares incredulously, stretches his limbs wonderingly and suddenly lets his crutches fall with a cry). Healed! (The cry is taken up by the others who surge about Fra Angelo.)

Fra Angelo. Come. Let us rest our hearts in God's good house,

And speak with one another.

(He goes out left, followed by the hushea and awestruck crowd. Rabelin, startled out of his defiant mood by the healing of the cripple, stands motionless an instant, pondering.)

Rabelin.

Um.

"You-are-healed."
That seemed easy.

Page (at left, waking). Is it morning yet?
Rabelin. Hello! What's here?
Page. Don't talk to me like that.
Rabelin. Say, who are you?

Page. I am the Duke's own page.
Remember that.

Rabelin. Pooh! What's a duke? I've been
A saint's companion, and I could be now,
If I'd been willing to endure his ways.
But he was-fresh, as teachers sometimes are,
And, well, I felt I was too old to stand
That sort of thing even from a holy man.
Page. A holy man?

Rabelin (offhand). Why, yes. They call him

that.

Of course, when you go traveling with a man You do see faults. But then he's good, he's good.

Page. Say, it's a holy man I'm out to find. When is he coming?

Rabelin. Why, he's come and gone.

Page (jumping to his feet). Gone!
Rabelin. You're a foolish virgin.
Page. Where'd he go?

Rabelin. Oh, you can't see him now. He's healing folk.

There's thousands clamoring to see him now.
You'll have to wait in line. If things go right
He may be free to-morrow at this time.
Page. Oh, help a fellow, won't you? I'll

be fired

If I come back without him. I sure will. I've got to see the holy man.

Rabelin. What for?

Page. Well, some one wants him.